Carbon Offsets for Fun and Profit

This article from the latest Stanford Social Innovation Review talks about whether the growing practice (and industry) of individuals buying carbon offsets, to offset their flights or their SUV or whatever they feel guilty for, is actually benefiting the environment. There's a danger that those who purchase offsets to offset their feelings of guilt about their carbon footprint may then feel justified by producing even more carbon emissions. Want an SUV but don't want the carbon guilt? Just spend $100 or so on offsets, and drive, drive, drive! If it were a wholly-conscious decision process, yeah, it would be hypocrisy. But most people don't think about it in such blatant terms.

What truly surprised me, though, was not this rebound behavior, but the fact that some carbon-offset resellers are for-profit companies. This shouldn't surprise me, but I assumed that of course an activity that is ostensibly for the sole purpose of environmental protection would have nonprofit status. On the other hand, after a quick look at the North American resellers, some of the for-profit providers funnel a higher percentage of offset-purchases into projects than some of the non-profits.

The website Carbon Catalog reviews carbon-offset resellers, reviews the projects that these offsets are funding for efficacy and sustainability, and allows you to search for offset resellers in your country. Resellers from around the world are included. If you're interested in pricing or purchasing carbon offsets for a particular trip/activity/event, or just to try to balance your personal carbon footprint, this is an excellent resource and place to start. You can search by providers and by projects (wind, solar, biomass, efficiency, forestation, etc). Do you want to plant trees in Israel (if so, choose Go Neutral) or would you rather support your favorite organic dairy producer's solar energy (Stonyfield Farm Solar Array)? For a more mainstream approach, the well-advertised (for-profit) TerraPass, based in San Francisco, offers one of the less expensive offset options at about $13 per ton, and invests heavily in methane from biomass and industrial methane.

While this site doesn't have as much information on the cost efficiency or sustainability of these projects as I'd like to see, it's at least a good beginning toward making informed choices about what carbon offset programs are better choices, in environmental terms, than others, and helps you see what your Bali-vacation-guilt-dollars actually supports.